PROVIDENCE – A Massachusetts-based medical equipment company will pay $400,000 to resolve civil claims that it sold Chinese-made products that were required to have been made in America, U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island Zachary A. Cunha said Wednesday.
ZOLL Medical Corp. of Chelmsford, Mass., which operates facilities at 201 Narragansett Park Drive in East Providence and 525 Narragansett Park Drive in Pawtucket, was accused of violating the federal Trade Agreements Act by allegedly selling Chinese-made electrocardiogram cables to the federal government, including the U.S. Department of Defense, between January 2019 and November 2022.
The government also claimed in January 2019 ZOLL inaccurately represented to government officials that replacement ECG cables had been manufactured in the U.S.
The Trade Agreements Act requires goods sold to the military or federal government purchasers must be made in America or certain designated foreign countries that do not include China.
“When corporations choose to supply the American military and American government agencies with goods, the law is clear: we expect those goods to be American made,” Cunha said. “When companies fail in their legal duty by substituting foreign products for the U.S.-origin goods that the law requires, we will hold them accountable.”
ZOLL, which is part of Asahi Kasei Group Co., makes products for defibrillation and monitoring, circulation and CPR feedback, data management and therapeutic temperature management.
